January 31, 2016

A story I wrote in 2013 (just after Pearl's birth) appears in the current issue of Cruising World (USA).

The 8-page spread documents a 30-day non-stop family passage we made aboard Anasazi Girl in the Southern Ocean in April 2012 from the Cape of Good Hope (Simons Town), South Africa to Fremantle, Western Australia . At that time, Tormentina and Raivo were ages 3 and 1.

The story and the type of sailing you experience at this latitude is without a doubt some of the most difficult and challenging you can take on. It takes a certain level of sailing experience, risk management skill, the right kind of boat, crew & conditions, as well as a very high mental & physical threshold for discomfort.

Tough is tough, but when the sailing here is good, it's really damn good. It's that feeling you ride long after the voyage is over.

Thanks to editors Mark Pillsbury & Jennifer Brett for supporting our sailing program and a big thanks to Dave Weaver for his work on the story layout.

Over the last year, Tormentina attended first grade at Donald McIntyre Griffiths K-12 school in Puerto Williams. Amazing & brave, this little girl was the only foreign student in the entire school.

Just after we were shipwrecked, she attended kindergarten on the island for a month, but wasn't into it, so we pulled her out of school. When first grade started, she said she was interested in giving it another try. No pressure from us. We told her if she didn't like going, then she could quit any time. Our only hope was that she would pick up some Spanish, a gift she could keep for the rest of her life.

She had a fantastic teacher (Jeanette Quiroz Mardones) and teacher's assistant (Soledad Mancilla Olivares). Tia Jeanette & Tia Soledad changed her life. Tormentina was self-motivated, excited to go to school and worked hard to learn. She loved her friends, teachers, and every subject.

By the end of the year, she not only learned how to speak a second language, but also how to read & write, was correcting our Spanish, and was one of four students to receive an award (or "premio") for outstanding academic performance in her class.

Now that summer is here, she is teaching herself how to read & write in English. It is incredible to be a parent and watch the mind of a child develop. Also emotional for me personally, to be reminded of my own childhoold growing up in the United States as a Cambodian refugee, learning English in school, and living with parents who were learning English as a second language.

"Tia Jeanette" & her top 1st grade students at the end of year academic awards ceremony.
Tormentina with her eyes on me. Sala de Multi-Uso, Liceo Donald McIntyre Griffiths, Puerto Williams
Isla Navarino - CHILE / XII Región de Magallanes y de la Antártica Chilena (22 de diciembre de 2015)

The beautiful forms of the Coihue (evergreen beech) are a favorite of ours. They always make the Navarino landscape spectacular and dramatic. Amazing and hearty, these trees remain evergreen and resilient even in the harshest of temperatures, brightening not only the forests of summertime but also the extreme wintery version too.

Nothofagus betuloides - Sydney Parkinson
The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations, Natural History Museum, London
This illustration was made from speciemens collected in Tierra del Fuego
by Sir Joseph Banks during Captain Cook's first voyage of the Endeavour in 1769